by Sharon Shinn
“Not quite finished,” Chay said. “I have one more question. Why are you here? Why did you bring me this information?”
“How could I not?” Nolan cried, no longer able to maintain his calm demeanor. “To know that genocide was being committed and I had the key to preventing it? How could I sit quietly in my chair and let it happen? But who else could I tell? Cerisa Daylen had designed the disease—could I run to her for help? The very woman who controls the city devised the plan—should I have gone to her? I didn’t know what to do! Until I saw Kitrini.” Nolan’s voice came to a dead stop as he fought to regain control. He watched Kitrini a moment, but she was still silent, still immobile. When he spoke again, his tone was quieter. “And I remembered that she knew you. And I thought her company would find me a way into your presence. And I thought you were the one who needed to know.”
“You have done a great act of bravery,” Chay said, “or a great act of betrayal. For your own people will look at this as such.”
“Some of them, maybe,” Nolan said in a voice barely greater than a whisper. “Not all. Not all of them are so unenlightened and afraid that they would wish to see an entire nation dead.”
“You realize, of course,” Chay said, and his voice had become brisk, almost businesslike, “that I cannot take any of what you say on faith. Despite what appears to be an act of heroism, I must consider that every word you say could be a lie.”
“And that the pills I have brought you are in fact poison,” Nolan said. He nodded. “I did realize that. But your own doctors and scientists should be able to duplicate my experiments. There is nothing here so abstract they will not be able to follow it.”
“And I must be tested, and my associates must be tested, and the results must be analyzed. This all takes time.”
“Yes. I am prepared to wait.”
Chay stepped backward and touched a dial on his desk. Nolan heard nothing, but presumed it was a signal to call a guard. “You must be prepared to wait under arrest,” he said. “I will make your quarters as comfortable as I can, but I must treat you as highly dangerous.”
“I understand.”
“You will not be allowed to leave your quarters without an escort and my permission. You will not be permitted to see anyone except the guard.”
This time Nolan risked a full glance at Kitrini. “May I be allowed to speak to Kit from time to time? If she will see me?”
“Oh, yes,” Chay said, “for she will share your quarters.”
Nolan was still looking at Kit, so he saw her start forward, suddenly wakened from her frozen state. “Share exile with him,” she said. “But I had nothing—I did not know—”
The door opened, and two guards walked in. They were both at least six and a half feet tall, burly and uncompromising. Chay addressed Kit as if they were the only two in the room. “If this is a war,” he said, “you must choose your side.”
“I choose yours,” she said instantly.
Chay shook his head. “Your blood chooses for you,” he said. “Your face. Your heritage.”
“But I love you,” she whispered.
“There is no love in a war,” Chay said, and turned away from her.
The guards were between Chay and the visitors. Nolan did not resist as one of the men took him none too gently by the arm and marched him from the room. Behind him, he heard no more protests from Kit. It was a struggle to keep up with the rapid pace down the sunny granite hall, past dozens of doorways, through a maze of corridors. Nolan just concentrated on not falling flat on his face and having to be dragged by his heels down the endless hallways.
In perhaps ten minutes, they arrived at their destination, and they were forcefully pulled through the doorway into what appeared to be a suite of rooms. The guard holding Kit snapped out a few sentences, to which she replied with one numb word, and then both of the gulden men tramped out. Nolan heard the lock turn in the door and footsteps fall away down the hallway.
It took almost all his strength to briefly take stock of his new residence. They were in what appeared to be a sitting room, gaily furnished with bright tapestries, rugs, low chairs, cushions, and short-legged tables. One large grilled window let in light and air, though it clearly would not permit a chance to escape. Doorways led off of either end of the main room, most likely to separate bedrooms. Somewhere, Nolan could hear water playing. It did not look much like a prison.
But to Kit, clearly, it was a dungeon in the base of hell. Her face had a smudged, stricken look to it; she appeared to be on her feet only because she was too rigid with shock to crumple to the floor. Her eyes darted from one corner of the room to another, as if seeking the hidden exit, as if looking for the clue, the key, the retraction. Her lips trembled as if she was on the brink of speech, but the audience she required had not yet made its appearance. Nolan had never seen anyone so wretched in his life.
“I’m sorry,” he said to her in his gentlest voice. “I did not realize he would bracket you with me. I did not realize he would consider you guilty of my crimes.”
She looked at him blankly, as if she heard the sound of his voice but could not translate his words. Nolan tried again. “I thought he might throw me into a jail of some sort. He’d be a fool not to! I thought he’d want to test the information and the drugs I gave him. I knew it would take time. But I didn’t think he’d make you suffer with me.” He glanced around. “Though I have to say these are better accommodations than I had hoped for. He must think there’s a chance I’m telling him the truth.”
“He believed you,” Kit breathed. “Or you would be dead.”
“In any case,” he said, “I’m sorry you’re guilty by association.”
“Is it true?” she said, still in that small, almost soundless voice. “Is it true he’s going to die?”
“I believe he’s been inoculated,” Nolan said gently. “I believe my drugs can save him. But all of it is out of my hands.”
“Because,” she said, and now she seemed to startle into life, now she wrung her shaking hands and began to pace through the room. Nolan turned to follow her motion. “Because a world without Chay is a world impossible to contemplate. He loves me more than he loves his own daughters, you know. He has told me that many times. And when I was a child at night, I used to lie awake asking myself, ‘Who do you love more? Your father or Chay Zanlan?’ And sometimes I answered the question one way and sometimes I answered it another. When my father died, I remembered all those midnight conversations, and I hated myself for having doubted, even for a moment, even as a child, that my father was the most important person in creation. But now when I think of Chay dying I think—I think—if I had the choice of bringing my father back or allowing Chay to live, I would keep my father in his grave. And Chay will die anyway.”
“We all die,” Nolan said. “What matters is not having that life taken away from us a second sooner than absolutely necessary.”
“What matters is that we do not lose the love of those we cherish,” Kit said, still kneading her hands. “That we remind them every day that we love them. That we do not quarrel, and part in anger, and never have a chance to reconcile.”
“Are you thinking of Jex?” Nolan asked stupidly, and she rounded on him in a weeping fury.
“No! I am thinking of Chay! Who loved me once, but sent me from his home more than six months ago, and has not told me again to my face that he loves me! And now he may be dying, and he does not trust me, and how can I go forward in the world with that burden on my heart? That Chay Zanlan did not forgive me? How can I survive?”
There were no words to assuage such a heartache. Without conscious volition, Nolan crossed the room and took her in his arms. She shook so dreadfully that he tightened his embrace, trying to placate the traumatized nerves, trying to squeeze the flailing muscles into submission. She did not resist him, but she could not be comforted. She rested her face against th
e front of his shirt and sobbed with all the abandon of a child.
* * *
* * *
After that outburst, Kit slept for ten solid hours. Nolan had guided her at random to one of the bedrooms and laid her on the bed, and she had followed the promptings of his hands as if she had no will of her own. He wished he had a sedative with him, but stress was its own tranquillizer. She closed her eyes and slept, and did not emerge for the rest of the night.
Nolan used the last of his energy to inspect their quarters. As he had guessed, it was composed of the sitting room, a shared necessary room, and two bedrooms. The fountain was playing off a small balcony that looked from the window of his room. Here, the bars that kept him from the outside world were a decorative verdigris that did not block the sun at all, but they were thick, sturdy and sunk in stone at both their top and bottom edges. There was no escape here.
He didn’t want to escape. He had put himself willingly and unreservedly in Chay Zanlan’s hands. He would not have tried to leave the compound if he had been given free run of the place.
And anyway, he would never have been able to leave Kit behind. Not tonight, certainly; not ever, perhaps.
But this was impossible. How could he have fallen in love with this blueskin girl, this fierce, strange creature who cared nothing for the life Nolan prized, who had rejected every doctrine and canon he had grown up believing as absolute truth? Putting aside the fact that she could never care for him—a man who had abducted her from her home!—putting aside the fact that he was not free to love anyone, how could he have fallen for her? He had only known her two days. And she was nothing like his picture of an ideal woman. And she was in love with another man.
And yet he knew it was true. And he did not know how to change it. He had no serum for this particular disease. He might have vaccinated himself in advance, if he had known the malady was lurking, but he had no cures for it now. And he would suffer with it until he died.
* * *
* * *
Two hours later, guards brought food and the luggage Nolan and Kit had surrendered when they entered the palace. There was, in addition, a pile of silks and cottons thrown onto one of the tables. The guard pointed and explained, but Nolan merely shrugged. Kit would have to translate in the morning.
However, sifting through the pile once the guards had left, he learned that Chay had sent them clean clothes, which seemed a favorable sign. At first, Nolan was unsure of which items might be intended for a man and which for a woman, for in Inrhio, only women wore color; men dressed exclusively in black and white. Yet here was a tunic much like the one Chay had worn that afternoon, and these were the sorts of leggings Nolan had seen on the commuters at the various train stations. Surely, they had been intended for him.
So he showered and changed, and took a moment to study himself in the full-length mirror. The royal purple of the tunic turned his face a sultry midnight blue; the bones of his cheeks looked longer and heavier. His hair shone with azure highlights. He did not look at all familiar.
He ate the food—now cold—then wandered back and forth between the sitting room and his own chamber, not sure how to pass the time. Perhaps, if Kit was awake when the guards returned, she could ask if the palace boasted any reading material in bluetongue. If not, and she would not speak to him, he would be reduced to doing mathematical equations in his head. It was how he had convinced himself to fall asleep when he was a boy; sometimes it still worked. Only he was not quite ready yet to seek his bed.
But. The thought of running formulas through his mind gave him an idea. He had paper and ink in his suitcase. He could find a way to profitably use his time.
Accordingly, he dug out a notebook and a pen and made himself comfortable on one of the low chairs. The hours passed, and he barely noticed. He did get up twice to check on Kit and make sure she was still breathing. Other than that, he did not stir. He merely experimented with numbers, X’d out impossible combinations, refigured models, and tried again.
When he finally went to bed, numbers and symbols danced before his eyes, and it was a long time before he could quiet his questing brain. But he had time. It would be days, maybe weeks, before Chay’s physicians and pharmacists verified Nolan’s data. He could play with these new numbers as long as he wanted.
* * *
* * *
In the morning, Kit was awake before him, looking pale but calm. Guards had brought breakfast while they were both still sleeping, and she was eating a pastry when Nolan emerged from his room. He was delighted to see her, but kept his greeting grave.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Somewhat savaged,” she admitted. “I’m sorry I made such a scene last night.”
“Don’t apologize,” he said swiftly, seating himself on a sofa across from her. “Not to me. I’m the one who brought you to this.”
She gave him one lengthy, unfathomable look. “You’re the one who may have saved Chay’s life,” she said. “If it can be saved.”
He longed to ask her one simple, direct question: Did you really mean what you said to Chay, about my goodness and my kind heart? But he could not bring himself to voice the words. “I hope it can,” he said. “So! What did they bring us to eat?”
They munched in silence for a few minutes, Nolan casting about for something else to say. “I’m not sure what we’ll do to entertain ourselves,” was the best he could come up with. “Maybe Chay could be persuaded to bring us books. Do you think he’s got anything in bluetongue in his library?”
She rose to her feet and began opening doors to cabinets and shelving units. “There should be a monitor here somewhere. Chay has every electronic toy invented … Ah,” she said in satisfaction, as the door of a small bureau slid back to reveal a square green screen. “Let’s see what kind of programming we have today.”
She turned it on and began flipping through channels. Most of them appeared to be showing news events, much like the ones broadcast in the city, though Nolan saw no hard copy attachment. A few of the stations she came across offered music, and one of them sounded as if it might be a theatrical production.
“Any of that interest you?” she asked, her back still to him.
“Well,” he said, smiling, “I can’t understand a word.”
She turned to face him. “Of course. Perhaps I should teach you goldtongue.”
“Actually, if you have the patience, I would like that very well. Then perhaps I would at least be able to greet my host in his own language.”
“Your jailor,” she said.
Nolan shrugged. “I am in his hands. Either way.”
She watched him a moment, looking as if she wanted to say something dangerously important, but then she shrugged and forced herself to smile. “I like your new outfit,” she said lightly. “You should dress in colors more often.”
“I feel very dashing,” he said. “They’ve brought clothes for you, too. In that pile.”
“Good. I guess I’ll bathe and change.” She crossed the room and picked through the blouses and trousers. “Meanwhile, why don’t you look through the rest of these cabinets? You may find a few more diversions.”
So he searched while she showered, and he turned up a few prizes: a pack of unfamiliar playing cards, two board games he’d never seen before, and a box of choisin pieces. He laughed silently. Enough days in a prison cell with no other diversions, and he might yet become a champion at the game.
Kit, it turned out when she rejoined him, enjoyed choisin. “Though I can’t say I’m very good,” she added. “Jex is a ferocious player, and he would always beat me unless I had someone on my team. And not many guldmen will play a game like this with a woman.”
“How did you learn, then?” Nolan said, setting out the pieces.
She was silent a moment. “My father taught me,” she said. “And Chay would always let me play beside him.”
“Well, I’m lousy at it,” Nolan said cheerfully. “So I’m sure you’ll do a splendid job.”
As it happened, they were about evenly matched, which meant the game was fairly dull. Then again, there was little else to do, so they continued playing in a halfhearted fashion. When she corrected him once (“No, you can’t move your choifer there”) he picked up the offending piece.
“How is this called in goldtongue?” he asked.
“Choifer. Same word. It’s a gulden game.”
“Then teach me something else.”
“Do you really want to learn the language?”
“It seems more productive than anything else I could be doing.”
“All right. Let’s see. I’ve never taught anyone words before … Kokta, Braeta. Man, woman. Can you say that?”
He repeated the words back to her, then the words for all the other objects in the room. Then she tried colors, but he began to get confused. There were ten synonyms for red, and nearly as many words for all the other hues. And who needed to know those things?
“Teach me verbs,” he said. “And then important sentences. Like ‘How are you this morning, Chay Zanlan?’ and ‘Have your scientists analyzed my reports?’ ”
“Those seem a little complicated,” she said.
“How about ‘Thank you for the purple tunic’?” he said, growing facetious. “Or teach me to say, ‘I am so pleased with my guest quarters. I am learning choisin so well.’ ”
“ ‘I am an honest man,’ ” she said quietly.
He paused, all the silliness leaving him, and shrugged faintly. “That, too,” he said.
“I will teach you only true things,” she said. “That way you can never lie in goldtongue.”
“I rarely bother to lie anyway,” he said.
“I know,” she said, and he wondered how she knew. “But this time you will have no choice.”
